


Too Much On My Own

by LadyLuckOfMine



Category: Dragon Age (Video Games), Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: Eventual Sex, Fantastic Racism, M/M, Period-Typical Homophobia, jazz bar au
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-08-20
Updated: 2016-08-20
Packaged: 2018-08-10 00:53:08
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,961
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7823842
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LadyLuckOfMine/pseuds/LadyLuckOfMine
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Dorian. So that was the shem’s name. How… fitting. A pompous name for the pompous peacock. Alris flipped the page and began to sketch out the bird, chewing on the inside of his cheek. <br/>He was on to something.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Too Much On My Own

The bar was shrouded in a thick cloud of imported cigar smoke. One could barely separate the stench of after shave that some of the patrons practically showered in from the scent of burnt tobacco and cloves. A low murmur of voices hung constantly in the background as the people talked quietly to one another. The velvet red carpet only added to the muffled sound of voices, the lighting dim enough to hid most patrons’ identities from prying eyes. Business men of all sorts gathered at the Antivan Rose, discussing all manners of things. Some things which you were better of not knowing about. All in all, it was a typical night at the popular bar.

Alris hummed softly to himself as he sat at the counter, nursing a glass of amber coloured scotch he had barely touched the entire time he had been there. It wasn’t uncommon to find the elf in attendance most nights, making his single drink (always scotch) last as long as possible into the evening. Some of the other patrons had taken to avoiding the Antivan Rose if they knew that Alris wasn’t there. He had become a seemingly permanent fixture at the mahogany counter, and no one ever dared to sit in his spot. They were scared that if they did, he would leave. That was more frightening to half the shems in that bar than the dangerous mob bosses who occasionally came by for an underhanded business deal.

“Bad luck’s abound with the elf not around.” Alris had chuckled when the barkeeper had told him about the superstition. It read as completely foolish and unfounded. He didn’t see why his presence would have stopped bad luck from happening to the other customers. Then, one night, when he hadn’t been there, two men both suffered strokes, and maybe, just maybe, Alris began to believe it himself.

He had no friends or family in the city. It felt nice to be wanted, even if it was just to drive off bad luck. It wasn’t exactly common occurrence for shems to want an elf around, especially not in a place like the Antivan Rose. Despite the supposed campaigns to diminish racism in the city. Then, there was the fact that Alris was very much a starving artist. No one wanted to hang around another starving artist in a city full of them. The fact that these men in suits with important business put up with his presence was a miracle.

“You look gloomier than usual there, Hot Stuff. Girlfriend dump you? Then run off with your best friend? Happened to me once. Shit sucks.” Alris glanced up from his drink, and over at the man who had climbed onto the barstool next to him. The dwarf was grinning, and waving for the barkeeper to bring him a drink. Varric leaned against the counter, eyeing up Alris with a smile on his lips.

As usual, the dwarf wore a deep v-neck that showed off the ample growth of hair on his chest, with a light blazer on top of it. A decently dressed fellow as always, but Alris had noticed the man’s lack of white in his wardrobe. It consisted of all manners of dark colours. Alris had several good guesses as to why that was.

“I have neither of those things,” Alris said simply, taking a small drink from his own glass. The elf wasn’t exactly a people person. One look at the elf’s stoic and cold demeanour was enough to tell that. Only the really brave ever dared to speak to him. Or the utterly foolish. Where Varric fell on that spectrum was undecided.

Then again, it was well known what kind of business the dwarf ran outside of his writing. Out of all the very important men in the bar, Varric was definitely one of the scariest, and knew that no one would ever mess with him. He had nothing to fear from Alris. Alris wasn’t a foolish man.

Varric was also the closest thing he had to an ally this side of the river, and he wasn’t going to risk losing his only support. Not that Alris would ever ask Varric for anything. One thing no one ever wanted to be, was in debt to the dwarf.

“No wonder you look so down. How about I buy you another drink? If you don’t finish that one soon, I wouldn’t be surprised if it picked up a pencil and began to sketch the human condition,” Varric said, chuckling at his own joke. Alris only scoffed and held his glass closer than before, ready to bat off the hands of any barkeeper who dared try to top him off.

“No, thank you. I do not like alcohol.”

“Then why do you drink it?” Why was the dwarf so full of questions? Alris was not an interesting person. He didn’t understand.

“It gives me an excuse to get out of the house,” Alris replied, glancing at Varric out of the corner of his eye. Varric raised a brow, but didn’t comment further, choosing to take a long drink from the glass of wine the barkeeper had set before him. It went unsaid how odd it was that the elf, for as antisocial as he was, was quite literally a social drinker. One who looked ready to box the ears off of anyone who got too close. Luckily, Varric was pretty good at boxing.

Too short for Alris to ever have a hope of swinging at him too.

The other patrons understood Alris. They left him well enough alone, with only one or two buying him a plate of nachos and having them sent to him ever since he had been dedicated as the lucky charm of the bar. Alris was lactose intolerant. Why Varric didn’t understand was beyond him. Maybe the dwarf was trying to make nice with a sad soul. Or rather, the dwarf was trying to butter him up. Varric had made it obvious in the past before that he would have loved to have Alris design the cover for one of his bad romance novels.

“I heard they brought in a new band for tonight. Supposed to be really good.” Varric was the first to break the silence between them. Alris would have very much enjoyed it if the silence had continued on. He didn’t want to talk, especially not about a band. Alris had never expressed any interest in the band that normally played at the bar. He hated jazz.

“That is nice”

“I think you’ll like them.”

“I do not like jazz.”

“Shit, Hot Stuff. You sure do hate a lot of the stuff. Do you hate art as well?” Varric probably didn’t want a serious answer to that. So of course, Alris would give him one.

It took a moment for the elf to responded. That was a question that needed a lot of thought in order to answer. It was complicated. Did he hate art? Sometimes, definitely, especially during those rougher months when no one had any jobs for him. Wasn’t that hating the situation and not the art though? Or was it self hate? Maybe if people actually wanted to pay for his work, he might have felt differently. There was only one way for him to answer such a complicated question.

“I am indifferent to art,” Alris said after a long pause, taking some satisfaction in how his answer made Varric sigh heavily. He was being purposefully difficult, but Varric deserved it. Alris didn’t want to have a friendly chat with anyone at the moment, especially not with Varric.

“Do you like anything?” Varric sounded exasperated, probably expecting a depressing answer, or one that would make his eyes roll back into his head.

Another pause as Alris thought. Just how far could he push his luck with one of the most dangerous men this side of the Imperium?

“I like pretty dwarves with lots of chest hair.” Alris winked, uncharacteristically playful, at Varric, grinning wickedly. For a moment, Varric looked shocked. Alris had finally found a way to leave the dwarf speechless. He found his thoughts ruminating on how nice it would have been to discover that trick earlier. It would have saved him so much time. Though, just as was his luck, Varric’s stunned silence ended too soon. Varric burst out into laughter, a large smile spreading across his face as he reached over to clap Alris on the back.

“Ah, always the joker! But I think I’m too old for you.”

“Really? Because just a moment ago, you tried to buy me a drink. I could use a sugar daddy.” Varric continued to laugh and held his hands up in defeat. The sound grated on Alris’ nerves, and he flicked his ear in a silent show of displeasure. Alas, dwarves and shem alike, no matter how roguish, were not known for their skills of reading body language.

“Ha! You got me there, Hot Stuff. With how white your hair keeps getting every time I see you, I forget you’re barely out of diapers.”

“Varric, I am thirty-one.”

“Barely out of diapers.” Varric patted him on the back again. The dwarf slide off of the barstool, grabbing his drink, which he raised to Alris in a mock toast, before wandering off. Alris watched him leave, running a hand self-consciously through his hair. It was indeed turning white. Too soon, too fast, in fact. It worried him.

Perhaps when he next got paid, he might see if he could find a salon that could colour it. He was far too young for the once obsidian coloured locks to turn blindingly white.

Another sip of scotch, this time with Alris pulling a face of disgust as the strong taste of alcohol attacked his tastebuds. Yes, he certainly did not like alcohol, but it helped. A glass of scotch drank slowly was the perfect fix to shot nerves and creative blocks. Of which he had many, as off late. It also felt like he was a real artist when he drank. Alone, brooding, scotch in hand, the weight of the world on his shoulders. He was the perfect picture of a sullen and starving artist. That had to be art in and of itself.

Maybe it wasn’t so much him playing the role, but Alris didn’t like to entertain thoughts like that. It smelled uncomfortably of the truth, and he didn’t like that. He wasn’t here for the truth, but for alcohol and a place to silently hate the entire world.

After all, the world gave him plenty of reasons to hate it. An elf in the big city, an artist struggling to make ends meet; those two things alone were enough to make his life miserable.

Swirling the liquid in the glass, Alris spared the stage a glance. Someday he would draw it. On that day, Varric would probably die of a fit. He had been refusing any and all jobs from the dwarf for as long as he had known him. Alris didn’t want his one big break to be on the cover of some shitty drugstore romance novel.

Varric had sworn off writing anything else. That disappointed Alris. He wasn’t much of a reader, in fact, he was terrible at it. Yet, he had read some of Varric’s early works, and they had been wonderful. Alris would have agreed to draw a cover for those in a heartbeat. Tales of mystery and intrigue, emotionally gruelling, and escapes into fantasy worlds, they had been beautiful trips away from reality. Life was funny that way. The things that one laboured intensively over, that they spent hours of pouring their soul into, they never made it big. It was always your shittiest piece of work that the world would remember. In some small way, Alris could sympathize with Varric. Varric possibly felt the same way. It could have explained why the dwarf was always so adamant about getting Alris to design him a cover.

But the stage. There was just something about it that demanded Alris’ attention. To some, it looked like the gateway to everything, fame, fortune, all they could want. All you had to do was step on it, and those people believed that it would suddenly make all your wants come true. However, Alris was cynical and had seen that wasn’t the case, unless you thought playing a gig a week at the Antivan Rose was success. It was laughable, really, though Alris couldn’t judge them. At least those bands had a secure job, even if once a week. Alris didn’t have that. He just had an apartment full of paintings and sketches no one wanted. Sometimes, late at night, he would turn over to stare at his pile of finished pieces, and think that they were symbolic in some way. No one wanted his art. No one wanted him.

The only reason that a new band was playing that night was because the old band has tragically fallen apart. The members had been discontent about their lack of fame, and had blamed one another. The stage had torn them apart and sent them spiralling off in different directions. Not that Alris cared. He may have hated jazz, but he knew enough to be able to say they had been exceptionally bad at the genre. As well as hardly being able to play an instrument between all of them. Alris was tone deaf, but he had been sure that even he could have played the trumpet better than that weasley looking man did.

They had broken up the last night Alris hadn’t shown up to the bar. It had taken him a good week to convince himself that it had just been a case of extremely bad timing. Alris had had a prior engagement that he had to attend to. There had been no time (or need) to show up at the bar. He should have. Not to save the band, if he really was a good luck charm, but for his own health. Alris was chasing after wisps of smoke that dissipated from between his fingers each time he tried to grab ahold.

Maybe if he really was a good luck charm, he could start selling his paintings at the bar. It would be easy to say that they were all blessed with his luck, and would bring the owner’s good fortune. At least then someone would buy them. If no one was going to buy one because it looked nice, then he may as well sell them based on their supposed good luck. It would probably backfire on him in some way though. Someone would be dissatisfied with their so called “lucky” painting, say it was defective, maybe. Then they might want a refund. Or worse.

How much good luck could they possess though, when he hadn’t sold any in Creators knew how long?

That deserved another sip of scotch. What depressing thoughts. Not that he ever had anything but. They came and clouded his mind, like a fog settling over him, shrouding out every ray of light that might have brightened his dark and gloomy world. At times, Alris doubted the existence of the sun. It had been years since he had seen it. Longer still since he had felt its warmth. It was frigid in its affections, it seemed.

Alris watched quietly as men began to move about on the stage, getting everything set up for the new act of the night. He supposed he could listen to one song before tuning them out. At least then, he would be able to say if they were bad or not.

If they were bad, he would stop showing up. Either the owner would fire them, or they would break up. Those sort of things always happened when he wasn’t there. Sometimes he thought the world was just playing a huge practical joke on him.

Leaning against the counter, Alris eyed up each of the band members who came out onto the stage. All shems, of course. It was simply too progressive to have an elf, dwarf, or Qunari play in a band that got a gig in a bar for shems.

None of them caught his attention, until the last one came out on stage. The first thing that struck Alris was how the man strode across the stage. Proud, like a peacock, he decided. The man had probably been born with a silver spoon in his mouth. Undoubtedly.

But that _moustache_. How disgusting. Why shems were so obsessed with growing out their vile facial hair was beyond Alris. They _groomed_ it, cared for it, like it was some beloved pet. It was disgusting and unhygienic. A man who lived on his floor had a bush of a beard, and it always smelt foul, no matter how the man scrubbed it. The bits of food that Alris could see in it on occasion were also disgusting in their own right. The shem on stage probably smeared his moustache in his own snot. Disgusting.

Alris hated how he couldn’t take his eyes off of the man. He also hated how he found the man attractive. Just slightly, however. Despite that hideous caterpillar that grew over his top lip. Anything more would have been unacceptable. Alris was not in the mind set or point of his life where he could afford to be tripping over his feet with a crush on some shem he hadn’t even met. That was just asking for trouble.

Still, just looking at the man… It made something stir inside him, something he thought had since died. The man would look beautiful on a piece of paper, as odd as that sounded. Alris wanted to draw him, utterly fascinated by his visage. Even the moustache he was willing to over look. No one could be completely perfect.

Alris didn’t pay any attention as the man spoke into the microphone, introducing the band and its members to the bar. The elf had busied himself with digging through his jacket pocket for the folded up pad of paper he always had on him. He pulled out a pencil as well, and quickly got to work, glancing up every now and then, as inconspicuously as possible, to look at the man. He was beautiful. Though it would be horribly embarrassing if anyone caught him drawing this total stranger. Most people didn’t understand the need to draw what sparked that little seed of creativity in his belly.

A seed that was starting to bloom again, most likely spurred on by the alcohol and his unending loneliness.

His hand moved as fast as it could, the graphite tip creating lines that slowly built off of one another until at last, the silouette of the man was immortalized on the crinkled piece of paper. It wasn’t often that Alris ever felt these creative surges anymore, and it had been rarer still for it to be a living being to trigger it. There was something about this shem that drew his attention like only one had before. However, that woman had turned him down, having no place in her heart for another man when she had already promised it to a man in a loveless marriage.

The lead of his pencil broke as he applied too much pressure, and Alris had to search his pocket feverently for a pencil sharpener. He had his muse; he couldn’t lose it now. If the Creators truly watched over him, he would find the sharpener that he almost always carried with him. Not that his luck would hold that much. Bad things always had to come in, chasing after the good things, like toads after a beautiful butterfly.

His body seized up, ears perking, as the band began to play, and the man opened his mouth to sing. The instruments played for a few seconds on the own, before a voice began to sing. It was… Unearthly. The hairs on the back of his neck stood up, a chill running down his spine as he listened to the sweet song. Alris glanced up at the stage, his mouth opening slightly as he saw that yes, it was that peacock man singing. There was a moment where Alris felt as though he was having another out of body experience. The man’s voice was… phenomenal. There weren’t enough words in the Trade language for him to even begin to describe it.

All thoughts to search through his pockets for his sharpener was gone. All Alris could do was stare at the man, mouth agape.

If anyone noticed the fit that the elf was having, they paid it no mind. The song was spellbinding. Like the man’s voice alone could enchant them all. In fact, it had. No one could look away. So out of all the eyes on the man, there should have been no way that his gaze would fall on Alris, who was the farthest out of his line of sight.

And Alris just sat there, looking dumbfounded.

“Now I’m looking in your eyes, I’m a little surprised I can’t moan.” The man was singing to him, and Alris was sure he let out a high pitched keening noise as the man continued to sing, eyes trained on him. It felt wrong, but in a good way. Like electricity was building in the space between the two of them, or maybe he was just imagining it. He was going manic after all. At least, he thought. That was generally the reason for these bouts of his.

Alris wasn’t sure if this was jazz anymore. Or if it ever had been. It couldn’t be jazz. He loved it. Or maybe he just loved the way the man sang. Not that he ever loved anything. This was just an anomaly. Within a day’s time, he would most likely forget this entire event, and be sure to avoid the bar the next day this band was scheduled to play.

As the song ended, the singer sent a wink his way, and flashed a brilliant smile that lit up his too handsome face. Then, Alris watched in shock as the man pulled out his pocket handkerchief, and tucked it into his back pocket. If anyone else in the bar knew what that meant and found it disgusting… The man could have just signed his own death certificate. With how the man’s eyes were still trained on him, Alris was certain that he knew what it meant. Why he might be aiming that towards the elf was certainly beyond Alris. Some of the people in the Antivan Rose barely put up with him as it was. He couldn’t imagine what would happen if they took note of the blatant flirting being directed at him.

When the second song began, and no one got up to kill the shem, Alris felt safe in saying that there was no need to worry. Well, there was need to worry. He couldn’t find his pencil sharpener. He _needed_ it.

It was near impossible to tear his gaze away. The man was still watching him, singing to him, and it made Alris’ face heat up. In many ways, he felt like a young teenager again, trying to draw up his courage to ask out his best friend. She, of course, had turned him down. She had lost herself, as had many after the clan had been broken apart.

He managed to tear his gaze away finally, ignoring the way his stomach twisted painfully.

“Excuse me, do you have a sharpener I can borrow for a moment?” Alris asked as the barkeeper drifted near. The woman looked up at him, obviously use to his odd requests, biting her lower lip as she thought.

“Don’t know if I have one, darling, but I’ll go check the back real quick,” she said, and Alris flashed her a small smile in gratitude. Glancing over his shoulder, he found that the man was still watching him, with such a look on his face that Alris was surprised that his clothes hadn’t magically disappeared. There was no way he was misreading any of this.

Or so he hoped.

It was lonely in the city. He was just another elf, just another artist who wasn’t making it anywhere. Nothing that interesting about him, other than the fact his hair was turning white unusually young. As much as he hated people, he still longed for companionship, even if it was just one night, a quick tryst, and then never crossing paths again. He had never thought to look for more. Alris had never wanted to. The loss of who he had thought to be his one true love still haunted him, and then the rejection from a woman who had given him a whole new perspective on the world.

Alris grunted softly, hoping he didn’t look anything like the lonely wreck that he was. He wouldn’t be able to bear it if that man was just watching him because he was making a fool of himself. Alris would die of embarrassment right then and there. Maybe with his death his art would finally become popular. Like that one artist. Ban Goff, or whatever his name was, the painter from Kirkwall.

Then again, Alris only gave other people good luck, and suffered from a chronic case of bad luck his entire life. He was not that lucky. Not even in death.

The barkeeper came back, and smiled at him as she held out a pencil sharpener. Alris took it with a quick word of thanks, and began to sharpen the pencil. He put the shavings into a small basket she pushed in his direction, before setting the sharpener down and continuing to sketch that beautiful man. Which was a lot harder now. Every time Alris looked up and over at the man, he found stormy grey eyes locked onto him.

There was no way he could draw and keep looking at the man without it becoming painfull obvious just who he was sketching. Oh, but the man was beautiful, and it might have been the months of never ending loneliness getting to him.

Asides from Vivienne, he had never found another shem beautiful. It had been something ingrained in him since his childhood in his clan.

A clan which no longer existed. The Dalish were banned from forming clans any more. Elves went missing if the authorities thought they were thinking of running off. They made it very obvious that they were trying to beat the elfiness out of them. Alris hadn’t been a fool, and had done his best to assimilate into shem culture. He had to be careful. The delicate lines that ran over his face, creating an intricate tree that had roots dipping below the hem of his shirt, marked him as different. It marked him as Dalish. Even other elves, who had never lived in a clan, who had been domesticated by the shems, still looked at him wrong. It was by some miracle that no one had tried to jump him yet. Maybe it was because he was large compared to your regular elf. Passable as human, if he could only hide his ears, and no one looked too closely at his face.

Idly, Alris ran a fingertip over his Vallaslin. Shem found it exotic. They punished him for it.

Alris really shouldn’t find this one so attractive. It was asking for trouble.

The sketch was roughly outlined, as detailed as it could be when he was so far away from the man that he couldn’t see the more miniscule details of his face. It did little to capture the man’s beauty. It was no wonder no one wanted his art.

“You want me to top you off, darling? You look like you need it.” Alris looked up at the barkeeper who was smiling at him. He didn’t hate her. She was nice. Definitely the only barkeeper who didn’t look like they wanted to spit in his glass. No one ever did though. The owner realized that with the superstition, that the bar would lose all of its patrons if Alris stopped showing up.

Maybe he liked her. If only, a little bit. She was Rivani, and seemed less racist than most other shem.

“No, I… No, I am good,” he said, running a hand through his hair, obviously in turmoil. It was obvious that he wasn’t good. He was distressed.

It may have been the light, but his hair appeared to get whiter.

“If you say so. But you know, I think he likes you. Dorian’s a great guy. Prickish, but great.”

_Dorian_. So that was the shem’s name. How… fitting. A pompous name for the pompous peacock. Alris flipped the page and began to sketch out the bird, chewing on the inside of his cheek.

He was on to something.

That much was obvious. Alris had never felt such an artistic burst. No, that was a lie. He had been going through a dry spell, a low from his manic frenzy of creative inspiration about half a year ago. It was always so hard to remember when his last burst of creativity came. It could be months and months, to the point where Alris was just ready to give up on art altogether, before the wonderfully euphoric sensation came back over him. This man, he inspired him.

When the set was over, the man, that peacock, _Dorian_ , walked off the stage, and their eyes met again. Alris tried to resist the temptation of following that open invitation to join the man out back.

It might have worked. Alris had no impulse control. It didn’t work.

 

**Author's Note:**

> Ramon Tikaram's "Too Much On My Own" will be the end of me. Please, look it up. Considering Tikaram uses his normal voice for Dorian, it's not too hard to imagine that this is how Dorian would sound singing. 
> 
> Magical.
> 
> Next chapter will have content that gives this story its M-rating.


End file.
